Hahnemule paper vs. others

I've used pretty much exclusively Epson premium paper, luster, matte and glossy. They are quite good. I've heard some good things about Hahnemule paper but, boy, are they expensive. More than 2x the cost of Epson. Anyone with experience using both? Is the quality an improvement over the Epson? I'm not necessarily looking for 2x improvement. I'm willing to pay more for better output. Thanks in advance.

There are some Hahnemühle papers that I like very much. They are expensive... perhaps not the most expensive of all time, but certainly close to it. As for "better output", you'll have to define what kind of "better" matters to you. For some people, "better" means "cheaper" so Hahnemühle would be ruled out immediately. LOL!

In matte media, I'm having a blast getting recent B&W work printed on Hahnemühle Bamboo. (Especially with the Jon Cone-designed K7 carbon inkset, which is a whole other story.) I really like the Bamboo... it's a nice & heavy stock, fairly smooth surface with a creamy warm tone. Very much like Hahnemühle Photo Rag which is a standard matte media for many people; Bamboo is warmer / Photo Rag is whiter.

In glossy media, one of my favorites used to be Harman Gloss FB Al. Harman discontinued their own papers in favor of a new joint venture with Hahnemühle -- Harman by Hahnemühle Gloss Art Fibre and Gloss Baryta. Both are a heavy stock with different gloss surfaces, Gloss Art Fibre having more texture than Gloss Baryta. Both are available in white and warm-toned variations.

For work that I sell or exhibit in "serious" shows, I often use a Hahnemühle paper... but I do have other favorites as well, from makers including Ilford (Gold Fibre Silk), Canson (Platine Fibre Rag), Moab, and even Epson. If you like to print and like the idea of tailoring different media to different styles of your work, or even specific images, pick up some sample packs from the different paper manufacturers and try out a few different things. You might find some gems that you really like.

One side note is that I often find the Hahnemühle generic ICC profiles downloadable from their site to be a bit substandard. If you decide to adopt any of these "fine art" papers, especially ones that involve a more significant cost, you might want to consider getting custom ICC profiles done for them to make sure you're getting the best results you can.

Thanks, Royce. Very helpful.

Like Royce I use a number of different papers depending on the use. These include Epson papers, Canson Baryta, Moab papers, Red River Paper and Hahnemule. Most offer sample packs that you can buy to determine what works best for you for your various printing needs.

Optica One from Breathing Color seems to be a popular matte paper at the moment.

I use both Hahnemule German Etching Board and Epson Luster. Epson printer with Epson photo papers is plug and play. Everything normally comes out fine with no hassle. All the Epson profiles come with the printer. It feeds just like writing paper. No feed issues. The downside is the paper is not that elegant or thick.

With Hahnemule Etching Board, the upshot is it just feels great and lays flat. I’ve used it for about 15 years, way back to pre affordable digital cameras when we scanned slides with a Nikon gizmo. I personally have a box of 50 of my favorite prints on Hahnemule displayed on my coffee table. I have another 200 that I rotate into the front box. The paper is durable and folks can thumb through the prints no problem. It is impressive media. The downside is it is lots of testing and bending the custom profiles. Time consuming and expensive as I tend to discard anything less than perfect. Getting the super thick paper to feed into the printer is always tricky too.

So, artsy, I use Hahnemule, more general use, I go with Epson paper. Also, I order the paper directly from BH, which gets it straight from Hahnemule . Local digital art suppliers often order the paper in large bulk size and cut it, so it has raggy edges and lots of paper dust. Not acceptable to me.

I judge a lot of public photography displays and contests. Frankly, Hahnemule isn’t what is wowing the folks of late. The current cutting edge rage is metal backed paper, and I am not familiar with whether one can print like that on an ink jet machine.

Thanks guys! Super info. I'm going to give a few a try and see what I like. I do like the Epson so anything else will be gravy. Does anyone (here or that you know of) sell or offer for download custom profiles for Hahnemule or others?

Custom profiles are created on demand for you, you can't download them. That's what makes them custom. Eric Chan used to offer custom profiling and he knows his stuff cold, but I gather he's now out of the profiling business. Cathy's Profiles is another service that many have used with evidently good results, but I have seen some reports in 2010 indicating she wasn't responding to orders or emails. Not sure if that is corrected now or if she's out of service at this point.

Dry Creek Photo also used to offer custom profiles, but I just checked their site and it now says "Due to a backlog of profiling orders, our custom profiling serivce is suspended for the time being." No date is given so I have no idea what's going on with them. Dang!

There's bound to be some good services out there but I've lost touch with who is actively doing this now... anybody else know of a profiling service that's good and still active?

At one time Breathing Color worked up custom profiles for their products. When Lyve canvas first came out I asked them about a profile for it on the 3800 printer, they had me print a test WITH the MOAB Desert Varnish spray coating that I use.
Profile was sent to me a a couple days for Free!

Profiles for all Hahnemule media and most printer combinations are offered free on the Hahnemule website:

http://www.hahnemuehle.com/site/en/220/ ... files.html

Once there, click on the red letter PDF and consult the chart which represents all their papers.

Find your paper, then your printer, and download the profile.

How to install the profiles is explained in detail, depending on your printer model, off the same ICC Profiles page on the left hand side.

Once you get the profile thing down, there is a lot more to it.

Using a high end, large, calibrated monitor really helps. Be sure the software platform you are using to print from is color managed. I suggest printing directly out of Photoshop because Adobe just has this color management thing down, as this is what they do. Next, you have to tell the printer to NOT use its own color management system, you MUST use Photoshop's. These dialog boxes appear after you hit Print in Photoshop and go to the software supplied by your printer company.

The next big screw up is not checking if all the printer nozzles are perfectly functioning. Always do a printer nozzle test before printing. It will save you a lot of wasted paper and ink. One misfiring nozzle will throw the whole process under the bus.

OK, now you have your print. Wait for it to dry before getting too crazy about tweaking the color, as the color shifts as the ink dries.

Now, here is a big one: view the print in the lighting situation that the print will ultimately be viewed in. If you are going into a gallery where they have tungsten lights, view under tungsten. If under florescent, view under that.

At the top end, photographic printing in San Diego County, my home, has gotten extremely competitive and refined. Nearly all gallery shows are judged to keep the quality up and the quantity down, as there is only so much wall space.

So, here is what has happened at the top level comps: Folks shoot and pick images they like. They then take the digital images to a professional print optimizer like Jim Respess or John Watts. One of my wealthy clients hired Tim Grey. These guys get the file all set up for printing. Now, the best printers cost upwards of $100,000 (I am not talking the ink jet unit is your office). These guys take their optimized files to these places with the super printers. Voila!

Let the finished prints be viewed by friends and family. After a time you will figure out which ones have the WOW, and which do not. Often much different than your take. The issue is the photographer is still emotionally involved with the making of the print, but the viewer is not. It is very difficult to be objective about one's own work at the very top.


You may ask yourself who do I think I am to make these claims. Here is a sort of qualifier: In photo shows in San Diego County I am often one of 2 or 3 judges, as I have been judging nearly 15 years and am well known here. I help evaluate at shows at the Museum of Photographic Arts, libraries, Parks and Rec Buildings, and the big annual show at Del Mar, and many others. Back in 2000 I was an early pioneer in digital printing and won so many shows they asked me to stop competing and start judging.

Our local university (University of Montana) sells Hahnemuhle paper by the sheet at the student bookstore so that poor art students can buy piecemeal. If you want to test it out, I'd check out your local university and buy a few sheets.

Thanks guys and thank you Steve for the insightful comments. Steve, I had heard that the Hahnemule profiles are less than ideal but will give them a spin for myself. It's funny you mentioned the struggle, so to speak, with bias towards one's prints compared to third parties. My wife almost always prefers different images than I do. Invariably the ones I love she thinks are just ok and the one's I think are just average or good she thinks are fabulous.

Royce Howland wrote:There's bound to be some good services out there but I've lost touch with who is actively doing this now... anybody else know of a profiling service that's good and still active?

I don't have first hand experience... but :

1) I've heard very good things about Michael Gordon, who now is affiliated with : http://www.greatprinterprofiles.com/

2) Chromix is a great site with helpful folks and I'd assume they have a good profile service : http://www2.chromix.com/index.cxsa